The Blind Detective
by Bellerophone
Summary: Teenaged detective Saguru Hakuba knows that his classmate Kaito Kuroba is the infamous Phantom Thief Kid.  But just as he's about to prove it, an accident occurs on a case and Saguru becomes blind.  Saguru can't see, but the case isn't closed yet...


Blinded

Hakuba Saguru had been enjoying a night off with a pot of tea and a new book, a highly-anticipated criminal psycho-thriller and a welcome token of Britain and the English language, when he got the phone call.

But of course, the Kaitou Kid had staged a last-minute heist, and precisely twenty-seven minutes later Saguru found himself standing in the obscenely lavish, obnoxiously pink bedroom of Suzuyuki Leiko, an airheaded heiress who was by turns hysterical with fearful sobs and playfully shooting Hakuba sultry glances which, attractive as she was, served only to further disgruntle and disgust Hakuba.

"Where the hell is he?" Hakuba snapped at the guards in the room, most of whom had their eyes fixed on the pink gemstone lying on the bed (the woman had refused to let them move it from her chamber).

As if on cue, the door banged open. Hakuba whipped around—but it was not the Kaitou Kid. It was Suzuyuki Leiko, dressed in a pink bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, her hair askew and flying about her wide-eyed face. "That's an impostor!" Leiko shrieked, pointing a wild finger at the Leiko on the bed.

The Leiko on the bed snatched up her pink gem and tried to pull away, but not before the Leiko in the doorway, as well as twenty policemen leapt on the gem.

Hakuba watched keenly from the doorway, tugging a wrinkle out of the sleeve of his collared shirt. Could Nakamori's men be any easier to manipulate?

Probably not. The Leiko from the doorway—the rhinestones on whose bathrobe Hakuba had immediately identified as fakes—had managed to seize the gem and the officers were doing nothing to stop her, preoccupied with making sure the original did not escape.

When the bathrobed Leiko disappeared in a column of white smoke, Hakuba was the only officer on his feet. On instinct, knowing it was the only way out of the room, Hakuba leaped up onto the windowsill of the wide bay windows in the room before all the smoke had cleared, and leaped.

Miraculously, his outstretched arms caught a pair of ankles, and with a howl of curses in several languages Hakuba and another teenager crashed to the rose garden two stories below.

Pink roses. He should have known. Hakuba spat dirt and petals from his mouth and seized the white cape slithering away through the broken bushes as the Kaitou Kid beside him staggered to his feet. The glider-cape tore away from his shoulders with a loud rip as the Kid fell sprawling, but before Hakuba could gloat or go for the revolver, the Kid kicked him in the midsection.

Gasping for air, Hakuba rolled back, struggling to keep his eyes open. He saw Kid bend his wrist, sleeve point down—going for the gas capsules.

"Oh no you don't!" He tackled Kid and they both went down again in a mess of white on brown, dirt and leaves flying.

Kid was struggling to get to his sleeves—with a grunt Hakuba wrenched his arms as far apart as he could—he was practically on top of the Kid; from here he easily recognized the boy beneath the monocle; there weren't blue eyes like that anywhere else in the world.

Kid let out a gasp of mocking laughter between his exertions. "Where's the evidence, detective-_san?_"

Hakuba's face tightened in anger, his honey-brown eyes flashing. He lunged for the monocle covering Kuroba Kaito's face the same instant the Kid hauled his legs around and threw Hakuba bodily from him. The cord of the monocle slipped through Hakuba's fingers as he slammed into a Doric column which wobbled from his weight.

The Kid was laughing, scrambling to his feet as he dusted dirt off his white suit—the pink gem sparkled in the dirt between them—Hakuba could see police lights flashing over the hedge and helicopters in the sky—and then the world exploded into a flash of dazzling, sickening white. He had half a second to wonder what the hell was happening before the pain roiled over him in a colossal, thunderous wave that struck him full on the head, and the white turned to utter blackness.

"…Saguru?"

Hakuba's skull felt fuzzy. And damn heavy.

"Sa-_chan_?"

_Leave me alone._

"Saguru, son, are you awake?"

"No," Hakuba mumbled, fingering cloth beneath his hands. Thin, hospital-quality sheets and a narrow bed, said the detective in his head. _Shut up,_ said the teenager in his head.

"Saguru!"

With a disgruntled groan of groggy protest, Hakuba opened his eyes.

Or tried to. The world stayed dark. He widened his eyes—then tried to close them. They definitely closed. He opened them again—but it was still as if thick eyelids lay across his eyes.

"Can you see, young man?" Hakuba didn't recognize the voice; he struggled against the darkness to stare blindly in the direction whence it came.

"Who are you?"

"I'm a doctor. You're in the hospital, son. Can you see?"

"No, I bloody well can't see!" Hakuba snapped, then pinched his mouth shut with a sigh.

"Why, though?" That was Hakuba's father's voice. "What happened to him, Nakamori-_kun_?"

"Err…" those was the gruff, thick tones of Inspector Nakamori without a doubt, but try as he might Hakuba could not pierce the black curtain across his eyes. "It seems a stone garden lantern fell on Hakuba-_kun_'s head."

From what had to be the foot of the hospital bed, a girl gasped and a boy snorted quickly.

"Who?" Hakuba struggled to sit up, feeling his eyes narrow and a mortified heat rise to his cheeks.

"Your friends from school came to see you this afternoon, during lunch recess," Director Hakuba said. "Nakamori-_chan_ and Kuroba-_kun_."

"How're you doing, Hakuba?" Kuroba said weakly.

"You," Hakuba said. Oh God, what a sight he must look: a bandage around his mussed blonde hair, sweat on his face (he could feel a trickle of it sliding down his cheek) and, judging by the papery scratchiness of the clothing barely covering his chest and thighs, a hospital gown. Probably floral-patterned. _Shoot me now._

"We're really sorry about what happened," Kuroba offered; Hakuba relished the awkward tone to his voice.

"Now, there's no need for that, Kuroba-_kun_," Hakuba said politely. "It's not your fault…"

Hakuba would have eaten his Sherlock Holmes hat for a chance to have seen the expression on Kuroba's face.

"Yeah…well…um…"

"If you ever need anything, Hakuba-_kun_, you tell us," Aoko cut in, her voice closer than Kuroba's; Hakuba's brain presented a mental picture of her leaning forward eagerly in her seat while Kuroba sat sprawled back. Probably with his feet up on the bed. Hakuba nudged his feet to the side and relished the sound of Kaito's precariously placed feet crashing to the ground.

Kuroba made a startled noise as Hakuba said, "I am much obliged, dear Aoko-_chan_. But now—" he turned his head sharply in the direction the doctor had been. "You'd best explain why I can't see, doctor."

"Cerebral trauma." The doctor's voice came from Hakuba's other side, right by his ear; he jumped and felt himself flush deeper. "The blow to your head interrupted your optical nerves."

"But it's not permanent," Hakuba insisted. _Please God it's not permanent._

"No, it's not permanent," the doctor's voice contained a friendly smile which itched Hakuba the wrong way. "You're going to need an operation, but after that you'll have perfect vision again."

"When's the operation?" Hakuba asked briskly. "As soon as possible please."

"I'm afraid your operation isn't an emergency," the doctor said, doing something to Hakuba's bandage. "We're trying to find a place to schedule you in right now."

A chill swept over Hakuba, a sudden claustrophobic panic that took all his pert obduracy to mask. "When?" he demanded curtly.

"We're looking at about three weeks," the doctor said with forced cheeriness, patting the bandage on Hakuba's head and causing a nauseous wave of dizzy pain. "But we've treated your head, only a very minor skull fracture, thank goodness, so you're free to go in two days."

"Two days," Hakuba repeated, struggling for composure. "And then I'm stumbling about blind for two and a half weeks?"

"We realize the inconvenience of this…"

Hakuba stopped listening. He sagged back into the thin pillows, feeling cold, and awkward, and embarrassed, and exhausted as death. Unbidden, childhood fears of the dark—fears that had caused him to turn to logic and detective work in an effort to beat back the monsters of the night— resurfaced with a subtle chill like noxious gas, cloying at his senses.

"Should leave him alone for a bit," the doctor was saying. "He needs sleep."

The scraping of chairs signaled Kuroba and both Nakamori's rising. Hakuba's father's voice came hesitantly: "Maybe I should stay with him…"  
"It's okay, Father," Hakuba said. "Call Mother and tell her I've awoken." Truthfully, he wanted them all to go away.

"All right, son. I'll be back."

"Okay."

He heard the door click shut, and it felt like a door had been slammed in his face. Then his bed was swimming, the walls of the imaginary hospital room he had constructed were falling away, and he was spinning in infinite blackness. Was he alone in the room?

"Hello?" he called.

"I'm here." the doctor's voice came from mere inches to Hakuba's right; he jumped in shock, moaned as his head began spinning, and then flushed with embarrassment again.

"Sorry, just had to get my things. I'm gone." The door opened and closed again.

Hakuba tried to close his eyes, but they kept snapping open again, as if daring to dream that sight had magically returned again. How was he to know, really, if there was not someone in the room with him? There was no evidence to prove it. There could be anyone looming over him; a thief, a murderer, a fiendish monster with flashing red eyes—

He forced himself to laugh aloud. "The Kaitou Kid was just here. That's enough foul visitors for one day at least, right?"

No one answered.

He couldn't believe he was saying it.

"Aoko-_kun_, please don't hold my hand."

To his right, Kuroba exhaled a near-inaudible sigh of relief. "You heard him, Aoko. Stop being so clingy."  
"But Hakuba-_kun_ can't see where the classroom is—"

"I appreciate your concern, Aoko-_kun_," Hakuba meant to put a hand on Aoko's shoulder. He missed, and his fingers brushed her cheek. Kuroba snorted in rage; Hakuba smiled with all the charm he possessed, "but I need to be able to find my own way around."

"O-okay," Aoko stammered; her voice began to fade away and Hakuba followed, knowing that she was entering their classroom. The hallway certainly seemed much longer when trekking down it blindly.

Hakuba walked solidly into the doorpost of the classroom with a resounding _thunk_—Aoko screamed, the class within gasped (_sounds like there are so many of them! How big was the class again?_), Kuroba let out a half-amused, half-horrified snorting noise, and Hakuba cursed so vilely he should have received at least three detentions. His head was ringing and throbbing like a squeezed balloon whose air was escaping in ear-shattering shrieks.

"Hey, Hakuba-_kun_, maybe you've knocked your sight back!" Kuroba said cheerfully as Hakuba reeled, utterly mortified. Hakuba had an awful, grating suspicion that Kuroba was waving a hand before his face; he snatched before him and was rewarded by slight contact with Kuroba's little finger before Kuroba's hand fastened around his upper arm. "Come on, let's find your desk."

"You're going to pay for this, Kaitou Kid," Hakuba muttered out of the corner of his mouth, struggling blindly for some semblance of composure and some sense of where the hell his desk was; judging by the noises coming from either side of him the class was torn between sighing sympathy and amused snickers.

Kuroba's way of answering was to shout "Oi!" in such a way that made Hakuba's head retch in protest. "Hakuba-_kun_ fought well with the Kaitou Kid four days ago!" Kuroba declared to the class; his hand tightened on Hakuba's arm to prevent him from pulling away. "Even though the Kaitou Kid is unbeatable and Hakuba-_kun_ didn't really stand a full chance to begin with—" thankfully, most of the class's cheers and Aoko's passionate outcry masked another dirty British curse—"Hakuba-_kun_ still prevented the Kid from getting away with his target!" Kuroba's voice grew marginally louder; Hakuba wondered if Kuroba were directly facing him as he said, "The news this morning said that the Kaitou Kid has issued another warning to Ms. Suzuyuki Leiko for a heist tomorrow night, this Friday!"

"Thank you, Kuroba-_kun_," the teacher's voice came out flat and tired, as it always did. Hakuba wrenched his arm from Kuroba's grip and sat down—on another person's lap.

"There's something _desperately_ attractive about a handsome blind man," came a whispery, chilling feminine voice, right in his ear. Hakuba leaped to his feet before Koizumi Akako's tongue could follow her voice.

"Excuse me," he muttered, aware that he wasn't quite addressing her face but not caring. The long-fingered hand of Kuroba had seized his arm again and this time he allowed the other boy to drag him down into the desk behind Akako's. Hakuba groped around the desk, trying to find the front and to right himself as the class laughed and Akako tittered unsettlingly.

"Not even _you_ deserve that," Kuroba muttered; the creak of old desks from behind Hakuba let him know Kuroba had sat behind him.

"Why didn't you take the gem?" Hakuba hissed back, turning his head until he was pretty sure it was pointed in Kuroba's direction. "It was right there on the ground."

The desk creaked again; Kuroba probably leaned back casually; his voice came from slightly farther away as he said airily, "I'm not going to justify that with a response—but my _guess_ would be that the Kid probably wondered if you were okay, maybe moved the stone thingie off you, and by that time the police were probably there and he cut his losses and split."

"I'm touched," Hakuba said dryly.

"Tell him that, not me."

"I'm touched," Hakuba repeated pointedly, beginning to smirk.

Kuroba sighed.

His amusement was short-lived. School was a nightmare; he couldn't find any books in his backpack, he tripped over everything in the aisles from backpacks to people to leaves of paper on the ground, and he walked into doors more often than through them. He had recorded the teachers' lectures, but the mere fact that taking notes was useless and impossible infuriated him.

And Kuroba helping him from class to class. That was the one thing that rankled more than all the rest.

It wasn't as if he was unused to people snickering and staring. Anyone who wore a Sherlock Holmes-style Inverness coat for fun should expect that. But now his one release was denied him too; Hakuba sat at his bedroom desk that evening, alone at last, chin propped up on one fist, the other hand laid flat over the open book open on the desk whose words were completely denied him by the silky smoothness of the pages.

He managed to check the urge to hurl the useless book against the wall, and rose with a sigh to pace the room.

Hakuba made it across the room, but on the way back he strode right into his abandoned desk chair and hit the ground flat-out with a stupendous crash.

"Bloody hell!"  
"You okay, Son?" Hakuba's father roared from somewhere downstairs. "I'm coming up!"

"NO!" Hakuba shouted, his mouth full of carpet. "I'm fine, Father."

The door opened anyway, and Hakuba's father said, "Are you sure? Anything hurt?"

"Just my pride," Hakuba said lightly, pushing himself up onto all fours, staring vacantly into the infinite blackness below him where the carpet should be. His forehead was prickling with tousled hair and sweat. "I'm going to go to sleep now, Father."

"It's only nine o'clock, Saguru."

"Is it?" It felt hours and hours later. "Oh well."

Hakuba imagined his father shifting his large bulk awkwardly from the doorway. "If you need anything, just ring."

"Cheers," Hakuba agreed, sitting back on his heels. He tilted his head up to where he thought his father was standing and smiled tightly. "Night, Father."

"Night, Son."

Pride dictated that Hakuba wait until the door clicked shut before crawling ignominiously across the floor until he bumped into the bed. Flushed with shame and embarrassment even though the room was vacant, he ran his fingers along the edge of his bed with a bowed head until he found the top of the sheets and pulled them back. He was still fully dressed, he realized, but the prospect of stumbling back across his room—rooms seemed bigger when one is blind, he had noted—was not a welcome one. He let himself tumble unceremoniously onto the mattress.

Hakuba stared sightlessly at the ceiling for a few moments longer, arms stretched behind his head in an illusion of relaxation, straining and straining to see the white roofing and porcelain light he knew were hanging over his head. His efforts only served to amplify the perpetual throb in his skull. With a small sigh of surrender Hakuba's honey-brown, vacant eyes slid shut—

"You don't look so good."  
Hakuba shot upright, his head whipping around. The voice was coming from the right, from the porch window; it was quick and glib, but also steady, slightly deeper than a teen's, but good Lord was it familiar—

"Kaitou Kid!"

The light thump of soft shoes landing on the carpet came from the window, but no approaching steps. "The one and only," said the soft, mocking voice.

"Get out before I arrest you," Hakuba snapped, trying to put himself in a position of command.

"I'm a little more to the left, actually," the voice said lightly. "There we go. Now you're almost looking at me. Still a little creepy, though. You always had creepy eyes, you know that?"

"You ought to tell me why you're here," Hakuba said cuttingly. "Else leave, please."

"I came to apologize," said the Kaitou Kid from the window.

"What?"

"You aren't surprised, are you? I'm insulted. You know I don't let people get hurt in heists."

"Your concern, it seems, was so great it led you to abandon your target."

"Aren't you touched?" the voice mocked.

"Now who gave you that idea?"

Kid didn't deign to answer. "I've decided to go on hiatus until your operation, Hakuba-_san_. After tomorrow night, of course. Can't really cancel on the poor Miss Suzuyuki."

"I'll see you there then," Hakuba said lightly.

"What?"

"You heard me," Hakuba said calmly. "This will not interfere with my work."

Kid laughed nervously. "You misunderstand—"

"No, you do," Hakuba said firmly. "I want no quarter from you, because once I catch you you'll receive none from me."

Kid chuckled. "You're a real nice guy, aren't you?"

Hakuba smiled predatorily. "I know."

"Well, I'm off, then," Kid said genially. "Got to revise my plan of attack for tomorrow if you're going to be there."

"I'm flattered, Kaito."

There came the sound of whirling cloth, then Kid said, "Excuse me?"

"I saw your face."

When Kid responded, his voice had lost some of the deep maturity inserted into it, making it instead zealous and laughing. "You haven't been seeing much of anything recently, Detective-_san_."

Hakuba groaned inwardly. "Touché."

The Kaitou Kid voice was back. "Be seeing you, then."

"Count on it," Hakuba challenged.

There was no answer.

Hakuba hesitated, turning his head awkwardly. "…Are you still there?"

No response. Cursing slightly under his breath, Hakuba slumped back on his bed and fell asleep. His dreams were irrational, arbitrary visions of meaningless color and light, and he forgot them instantly upon waking into blackness once again.

The next day, Hakuba had to wonder what had driven him to issue a direct challenge to the Kaitou Kid. He had never even done that with functioning eyes—the fact that he had never actually had the chance to challenge Kaitou Kid face-to-face before notwithstanding.

And yet here Hakuba Saguru was, standing in what his eyes told him was pitch-darkness and what reason told him was Suzuyuki Leiko's blindingly pink bedroom, the sultry proprietress of which, by the sound of her shrill, whiny voice, was standing right in front of Hakuba.

"This better not turn out like last time!"

Hakuba directed his eyes at her and hoped that despite their vacant sightlessness he was managing to convey some form of professional disdain.

"You have my word, Miss Suzuyuki," he said, quelling the sneer longing to play across his lips. God forbid he give the least suggestion of enjoying her presence.

"Hakuba-_kun_!"

Now _there_ was a more welcome female voice. Suzuyuki's stiletto heels clicked away as Hakuba turned towards Nakamori Aoko and was narrowly saved from striking his head on the doorpost by Aoko's seizing his arm. She quickly pulled him into a hug while Hakuba struggled with the color longing to burst onto his pale cheeks and pretended his head wasn't throbbing like a gunning engine.

"Thanks," he murmured stiffly, pushing her away.

"Sure," Aoko mumbled from somewhere on level with his chest. She cleared her throat. "Well, I just wanted to come to the case tonight, and Daddy said it was fine as long as I helped him keep an eye on you! He knows what a fan I am of Suzuyuki-_sama_'s clothes line."

"Smashing," Hakuba said dryly. _Keep an eye on me…_ "Well, if you'll excuse me, Nakamori-_chan_—"

"Okay…_is that Suzuyuki-sama right over there?_"

"Unfortunately," Hakuba drawled.

He didn't need sight to know that Aoko was bouncing eagerly at his side. "Okay, see you later, Hakuba-_kun_!"

Hakuba snorted as her footsteps scurried off. Well if that didn't rankle worse than the time a heist had been 'returned' in the inside pocket of Hakuba's coat, nestled right next to his golden pocket watch…and no one had taken him seriously when he insisted the only person who had come close enough to put it there had been Kuroba.

Hakuba felt himself frowning just at the memory. So close, he always came so close to catching Kuroba, and then chance or ignorant blindness would acquit him. Hakuba stared around unseeingly, sightless eyes passing impartially over a scoffing, strutting Suzuyuki Leiko, a disappointed Aoko darting to keep up as the blonde model stalked away, groups of policemen clustered around the room and hall, circling columns and peering out windows.

"Aoko!" Nakamori's gruff voice snapped. "Stop bothering Miss Suzuyuki!"

Hakuba stepped out of the doorway and into the hall with as much grace as a newly blind man can muster as Aoko trotted out, gustily sighing "Yes, Dad," as she passed him. Her light footsteps retreated to the left, towards the end of the hall, while the grumblings of Inspector Nakamori faded into the large hallways of the mansion on Hakuba's right.

He stepped into the hallway, reassured by the sense of carpet beneath his loafers, and turned left, trailing his fingers along the smooth, cool roughness of the painted wall, striding as fast as he dared. Aoko seemed already to have vanished.

The wall dropped away suddenly: a sharp corner. Hakuba turned it with his shoulder pressed against the wall and felt a sudden cool breeze, light as eyelashes, on his face. An open window, he hypothesized quickly, wondering why his heart had set to a rapid beat in his chest.

"Nakamori-_chan_?"

There it was, the faintest of clicks, the softest whisper of cloth.

Hakuba smiled darkly, feeling the thrill well up inside him. "You're not Nakamori Aoko, are you?"

"What are you talking about?" Aoko's voice retorted, confused and defiant, with a hint of petulance. "Of course it's me!"

"Since when does Aoko-_chan_ fancy designer clothing?" Hakuba queried, keeping his tone light but his eyes narrowed smugly. He had no way of knowing that their unfocused blindess, combined with the feral coolness of his face and the pale moonlight coming through the window lent him an eerie, wolfish air. His smirk grew wider still. "And of course, there's the fact that you couldn't resist slipping in a couple of eye puns, Kaitou Kid-_san_."

The answer came wordlessly, in the form of the smooth click of windows opening wider. In an instant, Hakuba's revolver was in his hand.

"Don't move, please."

Finally, a voice: low, laughing, smacking of excitability and mocking mirth. "You aren't even pointing it at me."

"I'm willing to take the chance that you're lying," Hakuba said coolly, hearing his own voice come out deep and smooth and confident compared to Kid's calculatedly rambling and ambling tones. He flicked off the safety with his thumb. "Or I'll suppose that you're telling the truth and bang a hole in the wall for the sport of it."

Kid cursed. "You are a nuisance, you know that?"

"And you are a fool," Hakuba retorted, frowning slightly. "You deliberately let me deduce your identity from verbal clues."

"Aah," there was a broad smile concealed in the Kid's professional voice. "It's more fun when the enemy has a fighting chance_._"

"Give me the gem," Hakuba said flatly.

"Sure," Kid said easily. There was a stretch of silence, long enough for Hakuba to wonder what was happening before his eyes, before with the clink of stone on carpet a small object landed near Hakuba's feet. "It's not what I'm looking for anyway."

There was a stepping sound—_Kaitou_ on the windowsill?—and then before Hakuba could speak Kid said, "See you around, Tantei-_san_!"

With a dirty British curse Hakuba tossed his revolver to the ground and lunged forward—he felt the cool breeze of a flapping cape on his face and had half a second to realize the preposterous recklessness of leaping blindly towards an undoubtedly open window—and then felt his head collide with cold, flat glass.

Hakuba staggered back, hissing curses, one arm clamped around his throbbing head, the other already groping for the walkie-talkie in his pocket, fumbling one-handed with it for the speaker button as he struggled to get his bearings, weaving drunkenly back and forth.

"Kaitou Kid in the air!" he gasped, feeling his eyes leak with pain. "Headed East! Repeat, all helicopters take note!"

"What the hell!" Nakamori's voice growled through the speaker as Hakuba shuffled forward in the dark hall, running two fingers lightly over the glass window before him. It was large and concave: a bay window, and as far as Hakuba could tell it was completely shut except for a small panel at his lower left only a foot tall and five inches wide, from where the breeze had been coming. "No use imitating Hakuba-_kun_'s voice, Kid, he's blind!" Nakamori sneered.

Beginning to tremble with a frustration that felt a lot like rage, Hakuba was about to radio back to repeat his declaration when a new voice sounded over the radio: "Kid spotted! By the East wing, like Hakuba-_kun_ said! In pursuit now, with your permission, sir!"

Hakuba felt his jaw hang open. "B-but—"

"AFTER HIM!" Nakamori bellowed, his tinny voice striking Hakuba's sore head with the force of a sledgehammer. Hakuba cursed again and staggered into the wall, holding the walkie-talkie at arm's length. "AFTER HIM, FOOLS!"

Teeth clenched in agony, feeling a lump rise on his forehead beneath his fingers, Hakuba switched off the radio and tossed it from him. He sank to the floor, running his fingers down the cool painted wall and pressing his forehead to it. Blindly he lifted his gaze to the wide bay window letting the moonlight in. The soft night breeze coming in from the tiny panel played across his face, as if it was the breath of the Kid himself, taunting the detective.

"How did he get through the window?" Aoko asked, her voice breathy with awe as, with the creak of school desks, she leaned slightly closer to Hakuba in homeroom Monday morning.

"I'm not sure yet," Hakuba admitted, his posture erect as he sat with his hands folded on top of the desk, his eyes cast slightly downward at where he hoped Aoko would be. "As soon as the operation's done, however, I'm going back to the scene to examine it. I'll find out his trick."

There came a mocking snort from Hakuba's right. He tilted his head in that direction with a superior sideways glance: "What is it, Kuroba-_kun_?"

"Nothing," Kuroba responded with subdued glee; Hakuba heard the sound of pencils scratching and was about to inquire into it when Aoko burst out:

"Kaito! Don't doodle on Hakuba's textbook!"

Despite Kuroba's loud protest of "OI!" she reached over and snatched the book with a ruffle of pages. Hakuba lifted his hands and the book thudded before him on the desk. "Thank you, Nakamori-_chan_."

"It's just pencil," she informed him over Kuroba's sulky grunt. "Want me to erase it for you?"

"…No," Hakuba said, feeling for the edges of the book and folding down the page. "I'll do it myself later."

"Okay," Aoko said bemusedly, "but why—"

She was interrupted by the teacher's entrance into the room. Hakuba stood with the rest of the class, and though he had to keep a hand on the desk to steady himself, he was almost positive that Kuroba was smiling.

"I'll get you some day," Hakuba muttered so only Kuroba could hear, as the rest of the class chorused "Good morning, Teacher!"

Kuroba's response was a low chuckle. "You're a real nice guy, aren't you?"

Hakuba smiled grimly as he resumed his seat. "I'm flattered, Kaitou Kid-_san_."

He got no response.

10


End file.
